Madison Mini Marathon 2015

This race gave me a lot of mixed emotions after I finished. It wasn’t an important must-do-well race, but when I didn’t do well, it stung.

Prior to the race I had some loose plans, which fell apart race morning. Those loose plans caused a chain of events that I believe affected my race. But at the end of the day, I am responsible for how I react, and how I perform.

I planted myself behind the 2:10 pace group, thinking that would be a safe place to start. The first mile was the usual annoying, congested, swerving around people, trying to find my rhythm game. The second mile was much like the first. Somewhere after, I met a woman on the course. She complimented my m-dot tattoo and we hit it off, chatting about Ironman things for a couple of miles. Chatting with her made me lose track of splits and effort, which was a good thing, until it wasn’t.

Around mile five is when I realized I went out too fast for my current capabilities. I told the woman I was running with that I’d be slowing down and we parted ways. After that the wheels began to fall off, I couldn’t tough out the heat, and I had seven miles of run/walking to get through.

I was surprised to finish in 2:10 with how terrible I felt through the last seven miles. I should have been really happy with that finish, I was shooting for a 2:15 finish to begin with. And look at these splits that just scream HEY ROOKIE, START OUT A LITTLE SLOWER!!

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3 thoughts on “Madison Mini Marathon 2015”

It’s so easy to go out too fast. Our first split was 8:30. I kept imagining what I could have run if my first two miles weren’t so fast and had to just throw that out of my head. You still finished another half marathon and like you said, there will be more.